The Essays of Michael Seigneur de Montaigne: Translated Into English ...

The Reason that Men do not doubt of many Things, is, that they never examine common Impressions: They do not dig to the Root, where Hc-withapthe Faults and Defects lie; they only debate ^"jJtlf upon the Branches: They do not examine Things. whether such and such a Thing be true, but if it has been so, and so understood. It is not enquired into, whether Galen has said any thing to purpose, but whether he has said so or so. In truth it was very good Reason, that this Curb and Constraint to the Liberty of our Judgments, and this Tyranny over our Opinions, should be extended to the Schools and Arts. The God of Scholastic Knowledge is Aristotle: 'Tis irreligious to question any of his Decrees, at it was those of Lycurgus at Sparta : His Doctrine is a magisterial Law to us, though peradventure 'tis as false as another. . I do not know, why I should not as willingly embrace either the Ideas of Plato, or the Atoms of Epicurus, or the Plenum or Vacuum of Leucip- Difference as pus and Democritus, or the Water of Thales, or the Infinity of Nature of Anaximander \ or ral Principles. the Air of Diogenes k, or the Members and Symmetry of Pythagoras, or the Infinity of Parmenides, or the One of Musæus, or the Water and Fire of Apollodorus^ or the similar Parts of Anagoras, or the Dilcord and Friendship of Empedocles, or the Fire of Heraclitus, or any other Opinion (in that infinite Confusion of Opinions and Sentiments, which this fine Human Reason does produce by its Certitude and Clear-sightedness in every thing it meddles withal) as I should the Opinion of Aristotle upon this Subject of the Principles of Natural Things: Which Principles he builds of three Pieces, Matter, Form, and Privation. And what can be more vain, than to make Inanity itself the Cause of the Production of Things? Privation is a Negative: Of what Humour could he then make the Cause and Original of Things

is a further Proof of a former Note in this Chapter, that it was Air, and not Age, as Montaigne thought, must be the God of this Philosopher of Jpollema.

that are: And yet that were not to be controverted, but for the Exercise of Logic. There is nothing disputed, neither to bring it into Doubt, but to defend the Author of the School from foreign Objections: His Authority is the non ultra, beyond which it is not permited to enquire. It is very easy upon approved Foundations to build . . whatever we please; for, according to the .fprindpsef Law> and Ordering of the Beginning, the without Exa- other Parts of the Structure are easily carried ruination liable on without any Failure. By this Way we find *°?j{ kmdof our Reafon well-grounded, and have good j, a . Warrant for what we fay; for our Mailers

prepossess and gain before-hand as much room in our Belief, as is necessary towards concluding afterwards what they please; as Geometricians do by their granted Demands: The Consent and Approbation we allow them, giving them Power to draw us to the Right and Left, and to whirl us about at their own Pleasure. Whoever will have his Presuppositions taken for granted, is our Master and God: He will lay the Plan of his Foundations so ample and easy, that by them he may mount us up to the Clouds, if he so please. In this Practice and Negociation of Science, we have given intire Credit to the Saying of Pythagoras, 'That every expert Person ought to be be'lieved in his own Art.' The Logician refers the Signification of Words to the Grammarian, the Rhetorician borrows the State of Arguments from the Logician: The Poet his Measure from the Musician, the Geometrician his Proportions from the Arithmetician, and the Metaphysicians take the Physical Conjectures for their Foundations. For every Science has its Principles presupposed, by which Human Judgment is every-where curbed. If you rush against this Barrier, where the principal Error lies, they have presently this Sentence in their Mouths,

* That there is no disputing with Persons, who deny

* Principles.' Now Men can have no Principles, if not revealed to them by the Divinity: Of all the rest the Beginning, the Middle, and the End, is nothing but Dream and Vapour. As for those tha&contend upon Presupposition, we must on the Contrary presuppose to them the
fame Axiom upon which the Dispute turns. For every human Presupposition and Declaration has as much Au* thority one as another, if Reason do not make the Difference. Wherefore they are all to be put into the Balance, and first the Generals, and those that tyrannise over us. The Persuasion of Certainty is a certain Testimony of Folly and extreme Uncertainty 5 and there are not a more foolish sort of Men, nor that are less Philosophers, than the Pbilodoxes of Plato '. We must enquire whether Fire be hot? whether Snow be white? if we know whether there be such Things as Hard or Soft?

And as to those Answers of which they tell old Stories, as he that doubted if there was any such Thing as Heat, whom they bid throw him- XfitkJu'nfelf into the Fire; and he that denied the ■ certainty is deColdness of Ice, whom they bid put a Cake terminable by of Ice into his Bosom; they are pitiful theExperience Things unworthy of the Profession of Philo- °stheS'"sessophy. If they had left us in our natural State, to receive the external Appearances of Things according as they present themselves to us by our Sensesand had permitted us to follow our own natural Appetites, and be governed by the Condition of our Birth; they might then, have Reason to talk at that Rate, but 'tis from them that we have learned to make ourselves sit up for Judges of the World: 'Tis from them that we derive this Fancy, 'that

* human Reason is Controller-General of all that is above

* and below the Firmament, that composes every Thing, 4 that can do every Thing, and, by the Means of which c every Thing is known and understood.' This Answer, would be good amongst Cannibals^ who enjoy the Happiness of a long, quiet, and peaceable Life, without Aristotle's Precepts, and without the Knowledge of the Name of Physics. This Answer would peradventure be of more Value and greater Force than all those they shall borrow

Vol. II. U from

1' Persons who are possessed with Opinions of which they know not the 'Grounds, whose Heads are intoxicated with Words; who sec and affect

* only the Appearances of Things.' This is taken from Plato, who hai •characterised them very particularly at the End of the Fifth Book, of his Republic.

from their Reason and Invention. Of this, all Animals, and all, where the Power of the Law of Nature is yet pure and simple, would be as capable as we; but those they have renounced. They need not tell us, it is true, for you fee and feel it so: They must tell me whether I really feel what I think I do; and, if I do feel it, then let them tell me why I feel it, and how, and what: Let them tell me the Name, Original, the Bounds and Borders of Heat and Cold, the Qualities of the Agent and Patient: Or let them give me up their Profession, which is not to admit or approve of any Thing, but by the Way of Reason, that is their Touch-stone tor Essays of every sort.

But certainly 'tis a Test full of Falsity, Error, Weakness, and Defect. Which way can we better Whether our prove it, than by itself? If we are not to beReason can |jeve jtwnen speaking of itself, it can hardly

judge of <wbat , . 1 r- • 1 r • <ni •

immediately re- « thought fit to judge of exotic Things lates to itself. foreign to it; if it knows any Thing, it will at least be its own Being and Abode. It is in the Soul, and either a Part or an Effect of it: For true and essential Reason, from which we, by false Colours, borrow the Name, is lodged in the Breast of the Almighty. There is its Habitation and Recess, and 'tis from thence that it proceeds, when God is pleased to impart any Ray of it to Mankind; and Pallas issued from her Father's Head, to communicate herself to the World.

Now let us see what human Reason tells us of itself, What Reason an0- °ftne Soul: Not of the Soul in general, telh us of the of which almost all Philosophy makes the Nature of the celestial and first Bodies Participants: Nor Soul' of that which Thales aattributed to Things,

which are themselves reputed inanimate, being moved by the Consideration of the Load-stone: But of that which appertains to us, and which we ought the best to know.

/'. e. For none the Nature of the Soul doth know, "Whether that it be born with us, or no; Or be infus'd into us at our Birth, And dies with us when we return to Earth; Or does descend to the black Shades below, Or into other Animals does go.

Crates and ° Dicœarchus were induced to judge from Human Reason, * that there was no Soul at all: But that the

* Body thus stirs by a Natural Motion: pPlato, that it

* was a Substance moving of itself: Thales, a Nature

* without Reposeq: Asclepiades, an Exercising of the

* Senses: Hefiod and Anaximander, a Thing composed of 'Earth and Water: Parmenides, of Earth and Fire: Em~

* pedocles, of Blood '.'

Sanguineam vomit ille animam'.

i. e.

His Soul he vomited in Streams of Blood.

Poffidonius, Cleanthes and Galen,judged from the fame Principle that it was Heat, or a hot Complexion:

Jgneus eft ollis vigor, et ccelestis origo c.

/*. e.

Their Vigour is of Fire, and does prove Itself descended from the Gods above.